Winning in Knoxville is tough but not impossible. They have dropped two home conference games each of the past two seasons. I was a lot lower on UT coming into the season than most, and they have proven me wrong and some. They are a really good team, specifically on defense. But I still do believe they are worse this year than they were last year, and obviously we are much improved.
Without Knecht, they run the offense even more through 5'9" PG Zakai Zeigler this year. He is the engine that makes them go, on both ends of the floor. Best passer in the league, non-stop motor, and an elite perimeter defender. His weaknesses are being prone to turnovers and not being able to shoot the ball (27-93 for 29% from 3 this season). He is a crafty finisher at the rim, but he definitely struggles against bigger teams. He's 7/15 on attempts at the rim in his 3 conference games this year, which is pretty bad.
The Knecht role is filled this year by transfer SG Chaz Lanier. He's up there with Koby Brea from UK as the best shooter in the league. If Lanier sounds familiar, it's because we played him last year when he was at North Florida (he had 16 points 4/8 from three in a 78-60 loss). The thing is, Lanier is not close to the overall player Knecht was. 82% of his 3 point makes are assisted on. He shoots 50% at the rim and 38.5% on other 2's (mid range, floaters, post ups etc.), which are both slightly below average numbers. He is one dimensional compared to Knecht who could single-handedly take over a game, as he did against us last year. Still, he needs to be blanketed at all times as he shoots 44% on a very high volume of 3's. One last thing worth note is that his numbers dip vs tougher competition. Per BartTorvik, in UT's 5 "Top 50 Quality Games" he shoots 40.5% from 3 and he is only 33.3% so far in conference play.
Outside of those two, they have a platoon of athletic guard/wing types who are great defensively. Jordan Gainey is a name to watch and is the second best shooter for them. Milicic is a skilled big who can really score and rebound but will be giving up athleticism to our big guys. He also tends to settle for 3's though he's a decent shooter. We out-athlete them in the frountcourt across the board, outside of their Center, Felix Okpara.
The recipe to winning the game is available, just watch the Florida film. Take away open 3's and beat them up on the glass and in the paint. Florida had double the amount of shots at the rim as UT and outrebounded the Vol's by almost 20 boards. Good thing that The Dawgs have been really good at defending the deep ball and rebounding. The biggest worry is our ability to score on their defense. This will be the best D we've played since the Ole Miss game. Can we score the ball enough this time? Can we finally start to hit some open jump shots? If we can get to 70 points we'll have a real chance to win the game IMO. I'm not outright predicting a win here, but I do like the matchup and think we have a better shot than most will probably give us credit for.
Without Knecht, they run the offense even more through 5'9" PG Zakai Zeigler this year. He is the engine that makes them go, on both ends of the floor. Best passer in the league, non-stop motor, and an elite perimeter defender. His weaknesses are being prone to turnovers and not being able to shoot the ball (27-93 for 29% from 3 this season). He is a crafty finisher at the rim, but he definitely struggles against bigger teams. He's 7/15 on attempts at the rim in his 3 conference games this year, which is pretty bad.
The Knecht role is filled this year by transfer SG Chaz Lanier. He's up there with Koby Brea from UK as the best shooter in the league. If Lanier sounds familiar, it's because we played him last year when he was at North Florida (he had 16 points 4/8 from three in a 78-60 loss). The thing is, Lanier is not close to the overall player Knecht was. 82% of his 3 point makes are assisted on. He shoots 50% at the rim and 38.5% on other 2's (mid range, floaters, post ups etc.), which are both slightly below average numbers. He is one dimensional compared to Knecht who could single-handedly take over a game, as he did against us last year. Still, he needs to be blanketed at all times as he shoots 44% on a very high volume of 3's. One last thing worth note is that his numbers dip vs tougher competition. Per BartTorvik, in UT's 5 "Top 50 Quality Games" he shoots 40.5% from 3 and he is only 33.3% so far in conference play.
Outside of those two, they have a platoon of athletic guard/wing types who are great defensively. Jordan Gainey is a name to watch and is the second best shooter for them. Milicic is a skilled big who can really score and rebound but will be giving up athleticism to our big guys. He also tends to settle for 3's though he's a decent shooter. We out-athlete them in the frountcourt across the board, outside of their Center, Felix Okpara.
The recipe to winning the game is available, just watch the Florida film. Take away open 3's and beat them up on the glass and in the paint. Florida had double the amount of shots at the rim as UT and outrebounded the Vol's by almost 20 boards. Good thing that The Dawgs have been really good at defending the deep ball and rebounding. The biggest worry is our ability to score on their defense. This will be the best D we've played since the Ole Miss game. Can we score the ball enough this time? Can we finally start to hit some open jump shots? If we can get to 70 points we'll have a real chance to win the game IMO. I'm not outright predicting a win here, but I do like the matchup and think we have a better shot than most will probably give us credit for.
